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Transmotion

Barak Chamo

Transmotion is an experiment in capturing the essence of meaning and emotion. A narrator and mechanical performer that capture the beauty of poetry in motion.

https://barakchamo.com

Description

Transmotion is an attempt to capture the emotion and beauty of poetry and translate it, by means of mechanical interpretation and conversion, into machine performance. The apparatus is seeded with human input, beautiful pieces of poetry, and I want to know wether it is capable of evoking the same sense of expression and emotion.

The selected poems are processed through sentiment analysis to extract the affective score of parts of the text. It is then read by a mechanical text-to-speech synthesizer and sent, word-by-word, to the robotic performer. The performer receives each word in time and interprets it into 3-axial movement.

Is there a connection between the text and the motion, between the poet's intention and the machine interpretation, and are performative automata capable of capturing and conveying human emotion?

Classes

Designing for Digital Fabrication, Introduction to Physical Computing

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CRYPT0MANIA

Caleb Ferguson

Cryptomania is a sculpture designed as commentary on the pandemonium surrounding cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. It pulsates with light based on real-time price changes of a particular cryptocurrency.

https://goo.gl/x9gLzK

Description

The pandemonium is everywhere!

Blockchain technology, and its specific use case as a framework/platform for cryptocurrency is fascinating the world. People are buying and selling these digital currencies with great fervor, without much understanding about how any of it works.

Cryptomania is a sculpture designed as commentary on the pandemonium. It lights up based on the 1 hour price change (a percentage value) of a particular crypto-currency – Ethereum.

The crystal is intended to encapsulate the mania by showing an ambiguous, but real time indication “good” or “bad” sentiment. The sculpture is intended to call the following concepts for consideration:

– The hive-mind mentality of observing a price as a proxy for “real” value

– The populist and over-simplified media coverage of blockchain technology

– The shortsighted, accelerationist nature of cryptocurrency discourse and “technical analysis”

by so-called experts

The crystal is a passive object that pulses with varying intensity and direction over time. Users are encouraged to observe for as long or short as they want, and revisit if desired.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Artificial Unintelligence

Shreiya Chowdhary

Robots moving on from their pasts and following their dreams.

Description

Artificial Unintelligence is about 3 mechanical arms that represent the idea of moving on from what you were told to be. They are robots that have their own personalities that can be controlled by leap motion controllers.

Each bot is seen in their own room with surroundings they are comfortable having around. However, since they're learning on their own, their movement is somewhat a surprise.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Presence

Dan Oved

Presence is a kinetic sculpture that reveals features where a user is gazing.

https://oveddan.github.io/blog/tags/presence/

Description

Our eyes directly represent our presence and focus. The installation uses novel research in computer vision to detect where a user is gazing, and coalesces detail in that direction. It will encourage the user to stay focused and present by rewarding them with animations that become more pronounced the longer they look at a point.

Classes

Designing for Digital Fabrication, Introduction to Physical Computing